”Det jag äter och det jag visar gör mig till en förebild” : En kvalitativ intervjustudie om förskolepersonalens deltagande under pedagogiska måltider | “What I eat and what I show makes me a role model” : A qualitative interview study about preschool staff’s participation in pedagogical meals

Background Pedagogical meals in preschool are meant to combine learning with nutritious food. Preschools have goals and guidelines for what they should serve, then it is the preschool teacher’s task to support the children in their eating and understanding of how meals work. Iti s important to socialize children through meals and to practice positive eating habits. Preschool teachers have a great influence on children’s eating, in a previous thesis there were differences in the children’s eating when the staff ate at the table with the children compared to when they did not eat at the table with the children. Purpose The purpose of the study was to investigate how preschool teachers experienced how their own participation in pedagogical meals affected the children. Method The purpose was researched through an interview study with preschool teachers from municipal preschools. Recruitment took place through Facebook with shareable posts in the group Förskolan.se, and between preschool teachers who were asked to recruit other preschool teachers. The interviews followed an interview guide with open-ended questions where participants were encouraged to talk about both positive and negative aspects. Thei nterviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results The results showed that the preschool teachers considered it “correct” when they ate at the table with the children during pedagogical meals, which was confirmed by the children questioning the staff when they did not eat together. Further issues were that they felt the children ate less vegetables, the staff could not demonstrate motor skills with cutlery, and it was more difficult for them to be able to talk about the sensory properties of the food. The conversation and social presence were important. The children were considered to eat better at preschool than at home. Conclusion The preschool teachers felt that the conversation and the social togetherness in their participation was important. There are shortcomings where the pedagogical meal is not prioritized enough, where the preschool teacher is placed in a difficult position. Preschool meals would benefit from becoming more of a priority from decision makers.